Extraordinary courage.
From the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. Women demonstrating in Kabul against the Taliban.
The demonstrations were dispersed, but this was one response to the call for a 'national uprising' by the resistance.
And here:
I was broken when I first heard the Taliban took over but I told myself I shouldn’t give up my fight for my rights. I decided to take to the streets with about 40 or 50 other women & publicly challenge the Taliban. No fear, now we are united.
This is the reason why history does not repeat itself. For all the imperfections of its democracy, twenty years of building a civil society brought hope, experience, and activity. Nothing can be turned back to how it was. The Taliban have seized a changed country that doesn't want it. Most people will seek to survive, a few will collaborate, but some will resist. The future is unpredictable, but I am in awe of the bravery of these Afghans in the face of brutality after being betrayed by allies.
Liberty and equality in modern liberal societies is worth defending or winning - in Afghanistan as in Belarus and elsewhere. When rights are taken away, people will struggle to regain them, even at appalling personal cost.
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